


Last Words

by Fluffyllama (Llama)



Category: Ultraviolet UK (tv)
Genre: Character Death, M/M, Yuletide, challenge:NYR 2008, recipient:Aervir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-01
Updated: 2008-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-22 04:23:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/233706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llama/pseuds/Fluffyllama





	Last Words

"In a novel," Pearse said, aiming for light and conversational, "there would be more appropriate weather for an occasion such as this."

Angie crinkled her lips together in what might have been a smile. She'd been doing that a lot lately.

It was true. Nobody in fiction ever died on a dull, nondescript sort of day. There would at least be something worthy of a mention, such as and intricate pattern of frost on the window, or the skeletal branches of winter trees tapping out his last moment against the glass. Or maybe the author would go with contrast: distant cries of children on a beautiful Spring day to remind the reader that death is part of life, and all part of the wonders of nature.

All part of God's plan.

Angie squeezed his hand tightly. "In a novel I'd probably be weeping copiously," she said. "Or wailing."

That sounded appalling. "Please don't."

"All right." Another squeeze.

"The nurses would be prettier too."

"Pearse!" But that was a real smile at last. Furtive, but still real. A giveaway twist before she shut it down, because Angie Marsh wasn't allowed any levity. Wasn't allowed to forget.

"I'm still a man," he rasped out, before descending into a coughing fit. "Just about."

"You're--" and he thought she was going to remind him he was a priest, as if he needed that reminder with a crucifix on every wall. Not that it was a problem. Useful, probably. Who knew if they'd given up on him yet, just because they'd failed once.

Twice.

Instead, Angie paused before she finally came out with it. "You're usually not distracted by such things."

"Would you prefer I try to pass on some final snippets of wisdom?" Perhaps he should be trying to think of some. Last words and all that. "You know how to do your job. And most of mine."

"I've never had your fire. Your..."

"Passion?"

"Maybe."

"You have it in you," Pearse said, and secure in the knowledge she wasn't going to walk out of there right now, he added something he'd wanted to say for a long time. "I've seen it, if you remember?"

She winced, as he knew she would. "Not one of my finer moments." Her fingers were colder than his, gripping him so tightly it might have hurt if he had less morphine cushioning his system.

"Nor one of mine." It could never be that, even if the execution hadn't been carried out before he'd driven the stakes home. But Pearse could always do what had to be done, couldn't he?

"I always wondered--"

"It never made a difference," she said quickly. Always quick on the uptake. Good girl. Talking was hard, thinking equally so. "I always trusted you the most. I never thanked you, but--"

"You can't--" She couldn't be serious. "You can't thank someone for that." Even a shell, well, it still looked like a daughter, a husband, even if it was only an illusion.

"No, I should have." Stubborn. Stubborn, and wrong.

There was nothing to be gained from pursuing it, however. Time was short. Pearse drew shallow breaths, not sure if he was disappointed when each one came.

"Did I ever tell you how I started?" He tried to sound casual, but there was nothing doing, he supposed. There were only so many tubes and wires one could be surrounded by before casual left the building. "How I found out about them?"

Code Fives. Code V, V for the word they never, ever used in case they slipped up and said it when - or where - they shouldn't.

"I... no." Angie seemed to lean closer, but maybe it was just his head swimming. Pearse sighed. "I don't think so. I suppose I didn't think too much about it at the time."

But she had wondered since, he knew that. Just like he knew he'd never told her the story. He'd never told _anyone_ the story.

"There was a boy," he started, and caught her raised eyebrow. "Not like that... or maybe it was like that. I never had chance to examine it too closely."

If he'd ever had her full attention, he had it now.

"Calum MacInnes," Pearse continued, and it was surprising how easy it was to tell the story, so rehearsed was it in his head after all those years. "Star of track and field, top of year every time, a guaranteed scholarship and first rate university offer for Economics already in the bag and an unbeatable contender for Head Boy our final year." He couldn't help smiling as a freckled face smiled in his memory.

Yes, maybe it _had_ been like that.

"We were best friends," he sighed. "Inseparable, so much that he even talked of joining me when I went to the seminary the following year, giving up his plans of university."

"You were already planning to be a priest?" Angie seemed surprised, though he wasn't sure why. It wasn't as if she became a doctor after her own tragedy. And Vaughan was always a soldier.

Their skills were simply more useful than others his mission had touched over the years, like his own. That was all.

"Oh yes." He smiled, not an entirely pleasant smile he was sure. "It was my rebellion that sent me to the Church, but my vocation always seemed real enough." Apart from oh, a thousand times over the years, but that wasn't going to add anything to a tale that was far from pretty as it was.

"Your parents didn't approve, I take it."

"My father approved of money, and prospects, and a son whose athletic prowess he could boast about. I'm not sure if the final straw was the priesthood or that I renounced cricket, but we didn't speak after I left home." There were some things morphine couldn't help with, it seemed. "My mother fell into a vat of vodka some time around my tenth birthday and hasn't emerged since." He assumed someone would have told him if she'd died, but perhaps not.

"I think I'd have rebelled too." Another twist of pale lips, but there was no pity there, and he was grateful for that. If there was one thing a dying man had enough of it was pity.

"Calum was our head of house, and I was deputy that year." A perfect summer, filled with long walks and private games, followed by a perfect term. Or so it seemed at first. "We were the golden boys, the envied ones, with a pack that followed us around and was always up for whatever we came up with next."

"But what kept coming up were bodies."

"They were..." Angie paused, her fingers restless against his, betraying her surprise. "Killing?"

He tried to nod, but made do with a grunt when the movement proved too much. "Draining them. We didn't know, of course. It was kept quiet. But..."

"But you suspected."

"I had no idea. Until I found Alistair Carr floating in the school's pond one day. Not a cut on him, but for the marks on his neck... and so pale."

Paler than the boy who had taken to shunning the sports teams and developed a cruel streak where the younger pack members were concerned. Who spoke of money and power, and where his skills could take him, and tossed his bible into the bin behind the kitchens when he thought nobody was looking.

"He told me in the end." He heard Angie draw in a sharp breath. "Calum did. He wanted me to go too."

"What did they want from you?"

"Who knows. Maybe just the pleasure of taking someone away from 'The Enemy'." His turn for a wry smile, but he was sure she could see there was no humour in it.

"I'm sorry."

"Oh, that's not the sorry part." Or the hard part. "I was tempted."

Silence. Well, silence apart from the hum of the machines, the tap of feet outside in the corridor, and what did nuns wear on their feet that made their footsteps so damn noisy? Shouldn't he know?

"Spending forever in our prime didn't seem so bad, and it seemed like an adventure." He drew a shaky breath. "I'm not saying I would ever have done it, but as I say: tempted."

"What stopped you?"

"There was a mirror in our dorm. He'd had it covered up for weeks, but nobody questioned it. He said it made the light too bright by his desk."

Pulling the sheet off it, checking his tie was straight before Morning Assembly because the bathroom was a heaving mass of testosterone and foot odour and he had to drop an essay revision off on his way.

Calum's voice behind him, and seeing only himself. Turning, and Calum's hands there, steadying him as he realised what this 'prolonged life, young forever' he was promised really meant.

Calum seeing it on his face.

And _smiling_.

""Don't worry," he said, as if the only problem was a few tiny mistakes. "I practiced, and I know what I did wrong now."" Pearse's laugh was hollow, and prompted another coughing fit.

"And you knew."

"Yes. I think I already did, but I didn't want to see it. Didn't want to see what he'd become."

"Nothing." And it sounded like she believed it. Maybe for the first time.

"Yes." No reflection in a mirror, no soul in a body, no compassion in an unbeating heart.

Angie was so still, so quiet, that he knew she could hear what he was - or wasn't - saying.

"So you can see, I'd already made the hardest decision. What I did for you--"

"--was still something you shouldn't have had to do," she said. "Thank you."

And maybe she hadn't been wrong to want to say it.

"You're welcome."

  



End file.
